ABOUT THIS ALBUM

Album Notes

Of Time And Tropics

This CD by Guillermo Anderson is the result of a previous publication, a photography book about the history of Honduras with photos by famous Dutch photographer Hannes Walraffen and texts by honduran writer Julio Escoto.

A CD accompanied this now out of print book with recorded sounds and songs that Guillermo wrote "as if writing for a film"according to himself.

Once the photography book went out of print, Costa Norte Records decided it was necessary to put together a CD for the market as to share with Guillermo´s followers some of his best intimate song writing. A few changes were made and some songs were added.

The setting is the caribbean coast of Honduras filled with interesting characters, songs about the old banana railroads, love sea port bars and sea-going stories,this is perhaps Guillermo´s most artistic CD

When famed Dutch photographer Hannes Walraffen decided to publish a book of his photography that depicts some of the history of Honduras, he recruited his friend, the Honduran novelist Julio Escoto, to supply the needed verbiage for the project. Escoto in turn suggested contacting the country’s premier musician, Guillermo Anderson, to write and record a CD with a complimentary theme to include in the book, creating a kind of multi-media package.
Max Urso is the founder of Costa Norte Records, the music label that puts out Anderson’s albums. Urso liked the idea of releasing Anderson’s CD separately, so he brought Guillermo back into the studios in La Ceiba and Tegucigalpa to add some new songs and tweak a few of the existing ones to create an album that would stand on its own as an independent, marketable entity. The final result is a seventeen song epic, spanning centuries of coastal culture, including the artist’s own memories. Appropriately, the eighty minute opus is entitled “Of Time and Tropics”.
In his past eight albums, Guillermo Anderson has pursued a unique theme on each disc, with a distinct sound for each venture. For his new CD, he draws from each of these influences, along with some new sounds as well. In the liner notes for the album, novelist Escoto speaks of the “richness of his (Anderson’s) musicality, based in local roots, but also his inconformity with what exists, the contemporary fresh air about it and the sweetness of his poetic vein”. The first track on the album, “Wooden Floor” is a perfect example of that sweetness, as Anderson conjures up his own childhood and adolescent memories that were witnessed by the floor in his house. How sweet is that?
Other songs visit the old banana railway, port bars and seafarers, fiestas and carnivals. Anderson handles these various topics with a milieu of musical styles, ranging from acoustic and Latin rock to the indigenous Garifuna, all with a Caribbean texture to them. I think that sometimes Anderson’s storytelling overshadows his incredible voice and very talented guitar work, not to mention his gift for meshing these three components into songs that are distinctly his and his alone. His new role as historian fits right into this menagerie, becoming another color of his tapestry.
Anderson is assisted throughout the album by long-time associate Eduardo “Guayo” Cedeno on electric and acoustic guitars, percussion and an instrument called the caramba, a type of bass using a gourd as the soundbox. As he has done on previous albums, Anderson also uses the chorus of schoolchildren from the Garifuna classrooms in Sambo Creek. Along with a host of other guests on saxophone, vocals, percussion and a variety of indigenous instruments, the end product stands as an homage to Honduran history and culture. Guillermo, in fact, has said that when writing the lyrics for this project, he did so “as if writing for a film”.
By Tony Orez

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